Текст книги "Shout at the Devil"

Автор книги: Wilbur Smith

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Lieutenant Kyller.

Kyller acknowledged the salutes of the two guards, and he spoke with them a while. Their voices were low and indistinct. Kyller saluted again, and then left them. He came down the deck towards the bows; he walked briskly, and his face below the peak of his cap was in darkness.

Sebastian crouched down again, only his eyes lifted above the piled canvas. He watched the officer and he was afraid.

Kyller stopped in mid-stride. He half stooped to look at the deck at his feet, and then in the same movement, straightened with his right hand dropping to the bolstered pistol on his belt.

"Guard!" he bellowed. "Here! At the double!" On the holy stoned white planking, the wet footprints that Sebastian had left behind him glittered in the lantern light. Kyller stared in the direction that they led, coming directly towards Sebastian's hiding-place.

The boots of the two guards pounded heavily along the deck. They had unslung their rifles as they ran to join Kyller.

"Someone has come aboard here. Spread out and search..."

Kyller shouted at them, as he closed in on Sebastian.

Sebastian panicked. he jumped up and ran, trying to reach the corner of the gun-turret.

"There he is!" Kyller's voice. "Stop! Stop or I'll fire."

Sebastian ran. His legs driving powerfully, his elbows pumping, head down, bare feet slapping on the planking, he raced through shadow.

"Stop!" Kyller was balanced on the balls of his feet, legs braced,

right shoulder thrust forward and right arm outflung in the classic stance of the pistol marksman. The arm dropped slowly and then kicked up violently, as the shot spouted from the Luger in a bell of yellow flame. The bullet sponged against the plating of the turret and then glanced off in whining ricochet.

Sebastian felt the wind of the bullet pass his head and he jinked his run. The corner of the turret was very close, and he dodged towards it.

Then Kyller's next shot blurted loudly in the night, and simultaneously something struck Sebastian a heavy blow under his left shoulder blade. It threw him forward off balance and he reeled against the turret, his hands scrabbled at the smooth steel without finding purchase. His body flattened against the side of the turret, so that the blood from the exit hole that the bullet had torn in his breast sprayed on to the pale grey, painted turret.

His legs buckled and he slid down, slowly, still trying to find purchase with the hooked claws of his fingers, so that as his knees touched the deck he was in the attitude of devout prayer. Forehead pressed against the turret, kneeling, arms spread high and wide.

Then the arms sank down, and he slid sideways, collapsed onto the deck and rolled on to his back.

Kyller came and stood over him. The pistol hanging slackly in the hand at his side.

"Oh, my God," there was genuine regret in Kyller's voice.

"It's only one of the porters. Why did the fool run! I wouldn't have fired if he had stood." Sebastian wanted to ask him where Rosa was. He wanted to explain that Rosa was his wife, that he loved her,

and that he had come to find her.

He concentrated his vision on Kyller's face as it hung over him,

and he SUmmoned his school-boy German, marshalling the sentences in his mind.

But as he opened his mouth the blood welled up in his throat and choked him. He coughed, racking, and the blood bubbled through his lips in a pink froth.

"Lung shot!" said Kyller, and then to the guards as they came up,

"Get a stretcher. Hurry. We must take him down to the sick-bay." There were twelve bunks in Blitcher's sick-bay, six down each side of the narrow cabin. In eight of "them lay German seamen; five malaria cases and three men injured in the work of repairing her bows.

Rosa Oldsmith was in the bunk farthest from the door.

She lay behind a movable screen, and a guard sat outside the screen. He wore a pistol at his belt and was wholly absorbed in a year-old variety magazine, the cover of which depicted a buxom blonde woman in a black corset and high boots, with a horse whip in one hand.

The cabin was brightly lit and smelled of, antiseptic One of the malarial cases was in delirium, and he laughed and shouted. The medical orderly moved along the rows of bunks carrying a metal tray from which he administered the morning dosages of quinine. The time was 5 a.m.

Rosa had slept only intermittently during the night. She lay on top of the blankets and she wore a striped to welling dressing-gown over the blue flannel nightgown. The gown was many sizes too large and she had rolled back the cuffs of the sleeves. Her hair was loose on the pillows, and damp at the temples with sweat. Her face was pale and drawn, with bluish smudges of fatigue under her eyes, and her shoulder ached dully where Fleischer had struck her.

She was awake now. She lay staring up at the low roof of the cabin, playing over in her mind fragments from the happenings of the last twenty-four hours.

She recalled the interrogation with Captain von Kleine.

He had sat opposite her in his luxuriously furnished cabin, and his manner had been kindly, his voice gentle, pronouncing the English words with blurring of the consonants and a hardening of the vowel sounds. His English was good.

"When did you last eat? "he asked her.

"I am not hungry," she replied, making no attempt to conceal her hatred. Hating them all this handsome, gentleman, the tall lieutenant who stood beside him, and Herman Fleischer who sat across the cabin from her, with his knees spread apart to accommodate the full hang of his belly.

I will send for food." Von Kleine ignored her protest and rang for his steward. When the food came, she could not deny the demands of her body and she ate, trying to show no enjoyment. The sausage and pickles were delicious, for she had not eaten since the previous noon.

Courteously von Kleine turned his attention to a discussion with

Lieutenant Kyller until she had finished, but when the steward removed the empty tray he came back to her.

"Herr Fleischer tells me you are the daughter of Major O'Flynn,

the commander of the Portuguese irregulars operating in German territory?"

"I was until he was hanged, murdered! He was injured and helpless. They tied him to a stretcher..." Rosa flared at him,

tears starting in her eyes.

"Yes," von Kleine stopped her, "I know. I am not pleased.

That is now a matter between myself and Commissioner Fleischer. I

can only say that I am sorry. I offer you my condolence." He paused and glanced at Herman Fleischer.

Rosa could see by the angry blue of his eyes that he meant what he said.

"But now there are some questions I must ask you..

Rosa had planned er replies, for she knew what he would ask. She replied frankly and truthfully to anything that did not jeopardize

Sebastian's attempt to place the time fuse aboard Blucher.

What were she and Flynn doing when they were captured?

Keeping the Blucher under surveillance. Waiting to signal her departure to the blockading cruisers.

How did the British know that Blucher was in the Rufiji?

The steel plate, of course. Then confirmation by aerial reconnaissance.

Were they contemplating offensive action against Blitcher?

No, they would wait until she sailed.

What was the strength of the blockade squadron?" Two cruisers that she had seen, she did not know if there were other warships waiting over the horizon.

Von Kleine phrased his questions carefully, and listened attentively to her replies. For an hour the interrogation continued,

until Rosa was yawning openly, tied her voice was slurred with exhaustion. Von Kleine realized that there was nothing to be learned from her. What she had told him he already knew or had guessed.

"Thank you," he finished. "I am keeping you aboard my ship.

There will be danger here, for soon I will be going out to meet the

British warships. But I believe that it will be better for you than if

I handed you over to the German administration ashore." He hesitated a moment and glanced at Commissioner Fleischer. "In every nation there are evil men, fools and barbarians. Do not judge us all by one man."

With distaste at her own treachery, Rosa found that she auld not hate this man. A weary smile tugged her mouth and she answered him.

"You are kind."

"Lieutenant Kyller will see you to the hospital.

I am sorry I can offer you no better quarters, but this is a crowded vessel." When she had gone, von Kleine lit a cheroot and while he tasted its comforting fragrance, he allowed his eyes to rest on the portrait of the two golden women across the cabin. Then he sat up in his chair and his voice had lost its gentleness as he spoke to the man who lolled on the couch.

"Herr Fleischer, I find it difficult to express fully my extreme displeasure at your handling of this affair..

After a night of fitful sleep, Rosa lay on her hospital bunk behind the screen and she thought of her husband. If things had gone well Sebastian must by now have placed the time charge and escaped from

Blitcher. Perhaps he was already on his way to the rendezvous on the

Abati river. If this were so, then she would not see him again. It was her one regret.

She imagined him in his ludicrous disguise, and she smiled a little. Dear lovable Sebastian. Would he ever know what had happened to her? Would he know that she had died with those whom she hated?

She hoped that he would never kno, that he would never torture himself with the knowledge that he had placed the instrument of her death with his own hands.

I wish I could see him just once more to tell him that my death is unimportant beside the death of Herman Fleischer, beside the destruction of this German warship. I wish only that when the time comes, I could see it. I wish there were some way I could know the exact time of the explosion so I could tell Herman Fleischer a minute before, when it is too late for him to escape, and watch him. Perhaps he would blubber, perhaps he would scream with fear. I would like that. I would like that very much.

The strength of her hatred was such that she could no longer lie still. She sat up and tied the belt of her gown around her waist. She was filled with a restless itchy exhilaration. It would be today she felt sure sometime today she would slake this burning thirst for vengeance that had tormented her for so long.

She threw her legs over the side of the bunk and pulled open the screen. The guard dropped his magazine and started up from his chair,

his hand dropping to the pistol at his hip.

"I will not harm you..." Rosa smiled at him, not yetV She pointed to the door which led into the tiny shower cabinet and toilet. The guard relaxed and nodded acquiescence. He followed her as she crossed the cabin.

Rosa walked slowly between the bunks, looking at the sick men that lay in them.

"All of you," she thought happily. "All of you!" O

She slid the tongue of the lock across, and was alone in the bathroom. She undressed, and leaned across the washbasin to the small mirror set above it. She could see the reflection of her head and shoulders. There was a purple and red bruise spreading down from her neck and staining the white swell of her right breast. She touched it tenderly A with her fingertips.

"Herman Fleischer," she said the name gloatingly, "it will be today I promise you that. Today you will die." And then suddenly she was crying.

"I only wish yOU could burn as my baby burned I wish you could choke and swing on the rope as my father did." And the tears fell fat and slow, sliding down her cheeks to drop into the basin. She started to sob, dry conVUlsive gasps of grief and hatred. She turned blindly to the shower cabinet, and turned both taps full on so that the rush of the water Would cover the sound of her weeping. She did not want them to hear it.

Later, when she had bathed her face and body and combed her hair and dressed again, she unlocked the door and stepped through it. She stopped abruptly and through puffy reddened eyes tried to make sense of what was happening in the sick-bay.

It was crowded. The surgeon was there, two orderlies, four German seamen, and the young lieutenant. All of them hovered about the stretcher that was being manoeuvred between the bunks. There was a man on the stretcher, she could see his form under the single grey blanket that covered him, but Lieutenant Kyller's back obscured her view of the man's face. There was blood on the blanket,

and a brown smear of blood on the sleeve of Kyller's white tunic.

She moved along the bulkhead of the cabin and craned her head to see around Kyller, but at that moment one of the orderlies leaned across to swab the mouth of the man on the stretcher with a white cloth. The cloth obscured the wounded man's face. Bright frothy blood soaked through the material, and the sight of it nauseated Rosa. She averted her gaze and slipped away towards her own bunk at the end of the cabin. She reached the screen, and behind her somebody groaned.

It was a low delirious groan, but the sound of it stopped Rosa instantly. She felt as though something within her chest was swelling to stifle her.

Slowly, fearfully, she turned back.

They were lifting the man from the stretcher to lay him on an empty bunk. The head lolled sideways, and beneath its stain of bark juice, Rosa saw that dear, well loved face.

"Sebastian!" she cried and she ran to him, pushing past Kyller,

throwing herself on to the blanket-draped body, trying to get her arms around him to hug him.

"Sebastian! What have they done to you!" Sebastian! Sebastian!"

Rosaleaned across him and held her mouth to his ear.

"Sebastian!" She called his name quietly but urgently, then brushed his forehead with her lips. The skin was cold and damp.

He lay on his back with the bed clothes turned back to his waist.

His chest was swathed in bandages, and his breathing sawed and gurgled.

"Sebastian. It's Rosa. It's Rosa. Wake up, Sebastian.

Wake up, it's Rosa."

"Rosa?" At last her name had reached him. He whispered it painfully, wetly, and fresh blood stained his lips.

Rosa had been on the edge of despair. Two hours she had been sitting beside him. Since the surgeon had finished dressing the wound,

she had sat with him touching him, calling to him. This was the first sign of recognition he had given her.

"Yes! Yes! It's Rosa. Wake up, Sebastian." Her voice lifted with relief.

"Rosa?" His eyelashes trembled.

"Wake up." She pinched his cold cheek and he winced.

His eyelids fluttered open.

"Rosa?" on a shallow, sawing breath.

"Here, Sebastian. I'm here." His eyes rolled in their sockets,

searching, trying desperately to focus.

"Here," she said, leaning over him and taking his face between her hands. She looked into his eyes.

"Here, my darling, here."

"Rosa!" His lips convulsed into a dreadful parody of a smile.

"Sebastian, did you set the bomb?" His breathing changed,

hoarser, and his mouth twitched with the effort.

"Tell them he whispered.

"Tell them what?"

"Seven. Must stop it."

"Seven o'clock?"

"Don't want you-"

"Will it explode at seven o'clock?"

"You-" It was too much and he coughed.

"Seven o'clock? Is that it, Sebastian?"

"You will He squeezed his eyes closed, putting all his strength into the effort of speaking.

"Please. Don't die. Stop it."

"Did you set it for seven o'clock?" In her impatience she tugged his head towards her. "Tell me, for God's sake, tell me!" Seven o'clock. Tell them tell them." Still holding him, she looked at the clock set high up on the bulkhead of the sick-bay.

On the white dial, the ornate black hands stood at fifteen minutes before the hour.

"Don't die, please don't die, "mumbled Sebastian.

She hardly heard the pain-muted pleading. A fierce surge of triumph lifted her she knew the hour. The exact minute. Now she could send for Herman Fleischer, and have him with her.

Gently she laid Sebastian's head back on the pillow. On the table below the clock she had seen a pad and pencil among the bottles and jars, and trays of instruments. She went to it, and while the guard watched her suspiciously she scribbled a note.

"Captain, My husband is conscious. He has a message of vital importance for Commissioner Fleischer. He will speak to no one but

Commissioner Fleischer. The message could save your ship.

Rosa Oldsmith." She folded the sheet of paper and pushed it into the guard's hand.

"For the Captain. Captain."

"Kapitan," repeated the guard.

"Ja!" And he went to the door of the sick-bay. She saw him speak with the second guard outside the door, and then pass him the note.

Rosa sank down on the edge of Sebastian's bunk. She ran her hand tenderly over his shaven head. The new hair was stiff and bristly under her fingers.

"Wait for me. I'm coming with you, my darling. Wait for me But he had lapsed back into unconsciousness. Crooning softly, she gentled him. Smiling to herself, happily, she waited for the minute hand of the clock to creep up to the zenith of the dial.

Captain Arthur Joyce had personally supervised the placing of the scuttling charges. Perhaps, long ago, another man had felt the way he did hearing the command spoken from the burning bush,

and knowing he must obey.

The charges were small, but laid in twenty places against the bare plating, they would rip Renounce's belly out of her cleanly. The watertight bulkhead had been opened to let the water rush through her.

The magazines had all of them been flooded to minimize the danger of explosion. The furnaces had been damped down, and he had blown the pressure on his boilers retaining a head of steam, just sufficient to take Renounce in on her last run into the channel of the Rufiji.

The cruiser had been stripped of her crew. Twenty men left aboard her to handle the ship. The rest of them transshipped aboard Pegasus.

Joyce was going to attempt to force the log boom, take Renounce through the minefield, and sink her higher up, where the double mouth of the channel merged into a single thoroughfare.

If he succeeded he would effectively have blocked Blitcher, and sacrificed a single ship.

If he failed, if Renounce sank in the minefield before she reached the confluence of the two channels, then Armstrong would have to take

Pegasus in and scuttle her also.

On his bridge Joyce sat hunched in his canvas deck chair, looking out at the land; the green line of Africa which the morning sun lit in harsh golden brilliance.

Renounce was running parallel to the coast, five miles off shore.

Behind her Pegasus trailed like a mourner at a funeral.

"06:45 hours, sit." The officer of the watch saluted.

"Very well." Joyce roused himself. Until this moment he had hoped. Now the time had come and Renounce must die.

"Yeoman of Signals," he spoke quietly, "make this signal with

Pegasus number "Plan A Effective" This was the code that Renounce was to stand in for the channel. "Stand by to pick up survivors."

"Pegasus acknowledges, sir." Joyce was glad that Armstrong had not sent some inane message such as "Good luck'. A curt acknowledgement, that was as it should be.

"All right, Pilot,"he said, take us in, please." It was a beautiful morning and a flat sea. The captain of the escort destroyer wished it were not, he would have forfeited a year's seniority for a week of fog and rain.

As his ship tore down the line of transports to administer a rebuke to the steamer at the end of the column for not keeping proper station, he looked out at the western horizon. Visibility was perfect,

a German masthead would be able to pick out this convoy of fat sluggish transports at

", a distance of thirty miles.

Twelve ships, fifteen thousand men and Blitcher could be out. At any moment she could come hurtling up over the horizon, with those long nine-inch guns blazing. The thought gave him the creeps. He jumped up from his stool, and crossed to the port rail of his bridge to glower at the convoy.

Close alongside wallowed one of the transports. They were playing cricket on her afterdeck. As he watched, a sun-bronzed giant of a

South African clad only in short khaki pants swung the bat and clearly he heard the crack as it struck the ball. The ball soared up and dropped into the sea with a tiny splash.

"Oh, good shot, sir!" applauded the lieutenant who stood beside the captain.

"This is not the members" enclosure at Lords, Mr. Parkinson,"

snarled the destroyer captain. "If you have nothing to occupy you, I

can find duties for you." The lieutenant retired hurt, and the captain glanced along the line of troopships.

"Oh, no!" he groaned. Number Three was making smoke again. Ever since leaving Durban harbOUr Number Three had been giving periodic impersonations of Mount VesuViUS. It Would be a give-away to the lookout at Blucher's masthead.

He reached for his megaphone, ready to hurl the most scathing reprimand he Could muster at Number Three as he passed her.

"This is worse than being a teacher in a kindergarten.

They'll break me yet." And he lifted the megaphone to his lips as

Number Three came abreast.

The infantry-men that lined the troopship's rail cheered his eloquence to the echo.

"The fools. Let them cheer Blitcher when she comes," growled the captain and crowd the bridge to gaze apprehensively into the west where

Africa lay just below the horizon.

"Strength to Renounce and Pegasus." He made the wish fervently "God grant they hold Bliacher. If she gets through..

"It's no use, Bwana. They won't move," the sergeant of Askari reported to Ensign Proust.

"What is the trouble? "demanded Proust.

"They say there is a bad magic on the ship. They will not go to her today." Proust looked over the mass of black humanity. They squatted sullenly among the huts and palm trees, rank upon rank Of them, huddled in their cloaks, faces closed and secretive.

Drawn up on the mud bank of the island were the two motor launches, ready to ferry the bearers downstream to the day's labour aboard Blitcher. The German seamen tending the launches were watching with interest this charade of dumb rebellion, and Ensign Proust was very conscious of their attention.

Proust was at the age where he had an iron-clad faith in his own sagacity, the dignity of a patriarch, and pimples.

He was, in other words, nineteen years of age.

It was clear to him that these native tribesmen had embarked on their present course of action for no other reason than to embarrass

Ensign Proust. It was a direct and personal attack on his standing and authority.

He lifted his right hand to his mouth and began to feed thoughtfully on his fingernails. His rather prominent Adam's apple moved in sympathy with the working of his jaws. Suddenly he realized what he was doing. It was a habit he was trying to cure, and he jerked his hand away and linked it with its mate behind his back, in a faithful imitation of Captain Otto von Kleine, a man whom he held in high admiration. It had hurt him deeply when Lieutenant Kyller had greeted his request for permission to grow a beard like Captain von

Kleine's with ribald laughter.

Now he sank his bare chin on to his chest and began to pace solemnly up and down the small clearing above the mud bank. The sergeant of Askari waited respectfully with his men drawn up behind him for Ensign Proust to reach a decision.

He could send one of the launches back to Blitcher, to fetch

Commissioner Fleischer. After all, this was really the Herr

Commissioner's shoW. (Proust had taken to using odd Swahili words like an old Africa hand). Yet he realized that to call for Fleischer would be an admission that he was unable to handle the situation.

Commissioner Fleischer would jeer at him, Commissioner Fleischer had shown an increasing tendency to jeer at Ensign Proust.

"No," he thought, flushing so that the red spots on his skin were less noticeable, "I will not send for that fat peasant." He stopped pacing and addressed himself to the sergeant of Askari.

"Tell them..." he started, and his voice squeaked alarmingly.

He adjusted the timbre to a deep throaty rumble, "Tell them I take a very serious view of this matter." The sergeant saluted, did a showy about-face with much feet stamping, and passed on Ensign Proust's message in loud Swahili. From the dark ranks of bearers there was no reaction whatsoever, not so much as a raised eyebrow. The crews of the launches were more responsive. One of them laughed.

Ensign Proust's Adam's apple bobbed, and his ears chameleoned to the colour of a good burgundy.

"Tell them that it is mutiny!" The last word squeaked again, and the sergeant hesitated while he groped for the Swahili equivalent.

Finally he settled for: "Bwana Heron is very angry." Proust had been nicknamed for his pointed nose and long thin legs. The tribesmen bore up valiantly under this intelligence.

"Tell them i will take drastic steps." Now, thought the sergeant,

he is making" sense. He allowed himself literary licence in his translation.

i "Bwana Heron says that there are trees on this island for all of you and he has sufficient rope." A sigh blew through them, soft and restless as a small wind in a field of wheat. Heads turned slowly until they were all looking at Walaka.

Reluctantly Walaka stood up to reply. He realized that it was foolhardy to draw attention to himself when there was talk of ropes in the air, but the damage had already been done. The hundreds of eyes upon him had singled him out to the Allemand. Bwana Intambu always hanged the man that everyone looked at.

Walaka began to speak. His voice had the soothing quality of a rusty gate squeaking in the wind. It went on and on, as Walaka attempted a one-man filibust.

"What is he talking about? "demanded Ensign Proust.

"He is talking about leopards," the sergeant told him.

"What is he saying about them?"

"He says, among other things,

that they are the excrement of dead lepers,"

Proust looked stunned, he had expected Walaka's speech to have at least some bearing on the business in hand. He rallied gamely.

"Tell him that he is a wise old man, and that I look to him to lead the others to their duties." And the sergeant gazed upon Walaka sternly.

"Bwana Heron says that you, Walaka, are the son of a diseased porcupine and that you feed on offal with the vultures.

He says further that you he has chosen to lead the others in the dance of the rope." Walaka stopped talking. He sighed in resignation and -started down towards the waiting launch. Five hundred men stood up and followed him.

The two vessels chugged sedately down to Blitcher's moorings.

Standing in the bows of the leading launch with his hands on his hips,

Ensign Proust had the proud bearing of a Viking returning from a successful raid.

"I understand these people," he would tell Lieutenant Kyller.

"You must pick out their leader and appeal to his sense of duty." He took his watch from his breast pocket.

"Fifteen minutes to seven" he Murmured. "I'll have them aboard on the hour." He turned and smiled fondly at Walaka who squatted miserably beside the wheelhouse.

"Good man, that! I'll bring his conduct to Lieutenant Kyller's attention." Lieutenant Ernst Kyller shrugged out of his tunic and sat down on his bunk. He held the tunic in his lap and fingered the sleeve. The smear of blood had dried, and as he rubbed the material between thumb and forefinger, the blood crumbled and flaked.

"He should not have run. I had to shoot." He stood up and hung the tunic in the little cupboard at the head of his bunk. Then he took his watch from the pocket and sat down again to wind it.

"Fifteen minutes to seven." He noted the time mechanically, and laid the gold hunter on the flap table beside the bunk. Then he lay back and arranged the pillows under his head, he crossed his still-booted feet and regarded them dispassionately.

"He came aboard to try and rescue his wife. It was the natural thing to do. But that disguise the shaven head, and stained skin that must have been carefully thought out. It must have taken time to arrange." Kyller closed his eyes. He was tired. It had been a long and eventful watch. Yet there was something nagging him, a feeling that there was an important detail that he had overlooked, a detail of vital no, of deadly importance.

Within two minutes of the girl's recognition of the wounded man,

Kyller and the Surgeon commander had established that he was not a native, but a white man disguised as one.

Kyller's English was sketchy, but he had understood the girl's cries of love and concern and accusation.

"You've killed him also. You've killed them all. My baby, my father and now my husband. You murderers, you filthy murdering swines!" Kyller grimaced and pressed his knuckles into his aching eyes.

Yes, he had understood her.

When he had reported to Captain von Kleine, the captain had placed little importance on the incident.

"Is the man conscious?"

"No, sir."

"What does the surgeon say his chances are?"

"He will die. Probably before midday."

"You did the right thing, Kyller." Von Kleine touched his shoulder in a show of understanding. "Do not reproach yourself It was your duty."

"Thank you, sir."

"You are off watch now. Go to your cabin and rest that is an order. I want you fresh and alert by nightfall."

"Is it tonight then, sir?"

"Yes. Tonight we sail. The minefield has been cleared and

I have given the order for the boom to be destroyed.

The new moon sets at 11:47. We will sail at midnight." But Kyller could not rest. The girl's face, pale, smeared with her tears, haunted him. The strangled breathing of the dying man echoed in his ears, and that nagging doubt scratched against his nerves.

There was something he must remember. He flogged his tired brain,

and it balked.

Why was the man disguised? If he came as soon as he had heard that his wife was a prisoner he would not have had time to effect the disguise.

Where had the man been when Fleischer had captured his wife? He had not been there to protect her. Where had he been? It must have been somewhere near at hand.

Kyller rolled on to his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow. He must rest. He must sleep now for tonight they would go out to break through the blockading English warships.

A single ship against a squadron. Their chances of slipping through unchallenged were small. There would be a night action. His imagination was heightened by fatigue, and behind his closed eyelids he saw the English cruisers, lit by the flashes of their own broadsides as they closed with Blitcher. The enemy intent on vengeance. The enemy in overwhelming strength. The enemy strong and freshly provisioned,